It’s a tale as old as time, or uh… for as long as you’ve been doing digital marketing: You’ve uncovered powerful audience insights that you fully believe will transform your company’s approach, but when you try to share them beyond the marketing team, eyes glaze over. Executives nod politely before steering the conversation back to
How to Use Mental Jujitsu to Convince Your Boss/Team/Client to Make the Right Marketing Investments
By “How do I convince my boss/team/client to invest in my audience’s true sources of influence? Especially when those sources are so hard to prove attribution?” Friend, I hear you. So, for this week’s 5-Minute Whiteboard, how about we try a little mental jujitsu to get everyone aligned on the reality of how the modern web
How to Turn Audience Research Into Content Ideas
By If you’ve ever stared at a blank content calendar wondering what to create next, you’re not alone. Even the most prolific writers* sometimes feel like they’re running nonstop on the content creation hamster wheel… even after ideas dry up and writer’s block sets in. But while continuing your creation habit can build momentum, sometimes the
New Research: Google Search Grew 20%+ in 2024; receives ~373X more searches than ChatGPT
By For years, two questions have dominated both marketers’ interest and the media’s coverage of Google Search: I’ve seen wild speculation that Google’s market share is down 5-10% since ChatGPT’s launch, and heard anecdotes across my feeds from people claiming that they never use Google and have entirely switched to AI tools. But, there’s been no
New Research: How Often Do Americans Search Google? Which Search Verticals Do They Use?
By Last quarter, we published an extraordinary analysis of hundreds of millions of Google searches alongside our clickstream panel partners at Datos (A Semrush Company). That analysis opened many marketers and creators’ eyes to the reality of how people use Google in 2024, i.e. navigational-heavy, and significantly weighted toward the top few thousand queries. This quarter,
ROI vs. VOI: Smart Marketers Look Beyond the Numbers
By Most of us default to Return on Investment (ROI) for measuring marketing success. It’s the tried-and-true metric that quantifies financial returns. Money in, money out. But we all know the messy reality of attribution. The prospects who subscribe and unsubscribe from our newsletters, who toss us a LinkedIn like now and then, who eventually Google
Unpopular Opinion: Public Relations is the Future of Marketing
By Public relations is a dying trade. Mainstream media has less influence than ever. Pitching for coverage is a thankless, fruitless task. Yeah, well, I think PR is poised for a massive comeback. Here’s why: This week’s 5-Minute Whiteboard is the one to show to your boss, team, client, or c-suite next time they ask why
Audience Research: The Complete Guide for Marketers in 2025
By We launched SparkToro four years ago with the firm belief that audience research — and the knowledge that the tech giants gather about us — should be accessible to all. In the pre-Musk era of Twitter, when the API was free and available to all developers, we offered a suite of free tools that marketers
Why One-Pagers Are Dead (And What to Send Instead)
By Recently I said that nobody wants your one-pager. Some of you disagreed, one of you quoted Limp Bizkit at me, a handful of your AI-generated replies agreed with me, but mostly, you agreed with me. The problem with one-pagers is that they’re a frequently-asked-for asset that doesn’t address the true need. Your prospect (or their
Traffic Is Down; Revenue Is… Up?
By It’s weird times in the digital marketing universe. For decades, traffic and sales went together like peanut butter and jelly, cacio and pepe, palak and paneer. But, in the last few years, we’ve seen a deeply strange trend where the two have become unbound. In example after example, traffic can fall while revenue rises. Why